S. N. Dyer
Author: Resolve;resistance
Date: 2012-08-07 14:02:01+02:00

Resolve and resistance
by S.N. Dyer

The beggar shifted slightly, suppressing a moan. His absent arm and his blind eye had long since ceased to ache, but the loss of his leg was still fresh. Perhaps because he had lost it in defeat, it continued to trouble him. It was if the foot were present, each missing toe throbbing continually in phantom agony.

* Sensing him move, the ginger tomcat on his shoulder began to purr, and his parrot looked over from its perch on his empty cap. “Do your duty, do your duty,” it said.

He saw some officers approaching in their savage finery, led by a servile Englishman. Soon he could hear the man’s voice, and recognized the broad nasal accents of his own native Norfolk. The beggar ducked his head and tried to appear asleep, leaning his face so that the cat obscured it.

“You there. Do your pets do tricks?”

He sighed. Norfolk was a large county; he could only hope that the man would not recognize him. He preferred to think that none who had ever known him could become collaborators.

“Aye, me lords,” he said. “Now Nappy, where’s Farmer George?” He shrugged so that the cat jumped down.

The parrot began to strut, shouting “Hooray for Boneyparte! Hooray for Boneyparte!” Then it leapt upon the cat’s back and rode about contentedly.

The French officers laughed happily, and each tossed a coin into the cap. The Norfolkman bent down. “I knew a bird like that once—smaller, it was, belonged to a boatswain’s mate when I was a lad.”

The collaborator stared at the beggar, his gaze dissecting away the tangled shock of white hair, the disgusting beard, the missing teeth, and focusing instead upon the long thin nose, the huge black eyes. He drew in a quick breath, his own eyes widening.

“I’m done for,” thought the beggar. The thought was nowhere near so unpleasant as he had expected. After losing the last battle and his leg, his hope had been of vengeance and salvation. But this year of wandering had buried any hope, even that of escape.

The Norfolkman said, “No, the parrot I knew had some yellow to him,” and whispered before he drew away, “Darcy. Pemberly.”

That night some roughs came and took his coins, dealt him a few blows for no good reason, and tossed his crutch away for the sheer pleasure of watching him crawl after it. Nappy and Farmer George had taken refuge together in one of the few standing trees, and watched their master’s new humiliation with impassive eyes.

The beggar did not care. He raised himself upon his crutch and hobbled back, whistling for his pets. He had a destination now, though he had no idea where Pemberly might be, or what manner of man Darcy. But for the first time in a year he had more to his life than pain and the shadow of inchoate yearnings.

And so, smiling, a green Indies parrot upon his left shoulder, a flearidden orange cat curled in his lap, Horatio Lord Nelson, Viscount Bronte, Knight of the Bath, Commander in Chief of the Channel Fleet, fell asleep and dreamed of battles that would never be and of others that would never end.

Two months later he arrived at Pemberly. The nights had turned cold, and he knew that if he did not find refuge here, he would not survive the winter.

The village was surprisingly prosperous, as if bypassed by the war and the blockade. He saw French soldiers laughing outside a pub, ruffling the hair of a child, and he felt unreasoning hatred for these simple country folk. In Norfolk, in Yorkshire, even in Scotland and Wales, those wild lands with the least claim of loyalty to their Hanoverian king—there guerrillas fought a war that was vicious and unrelenting. In the ports and harbours of England, old men and boys halfheartedly rebuilt burned out shipyards and raised scuttled vessels, all that had been left by the Navy and merchant ships which even now set forth from colonial ports under the guidance of the exiled Prince of Wales. England still ruled the waves, she just did not rule herself. But here, now, it was if the war had never occurred, and the Frenchmen were the invited guests of Mad George.

He stopped by the pump, drank his fill, then cupped his hands for his comrades. The parrot stood upon the cat’s back to drink, and they soon had a small audience for their small performance.

A pair of French officers emerged from a shop and watched Nelson.

“Tres amusant,” said one.

“He must come with us,” said the other. “The fair Elisabeth appreciates oddities.”

They mounted their horses, nervous Thoroughbreds who were obvious booty from the stables of some Englishman of taste. “You there,” an officer called.

Nelson looked blank until the fellow spoke to him again in English. “You there, beggar, come with us. Madame will give you dinner and a place to sleep.”

Nelson nodded and tugged on his hat in a crippled imitation of servility. He whistled. Farmer George’s sole trick was to leap up to his shoulder. As ever the cat managed to make it seem he had done it of his own accord as well as a great favor to his master.

The Frenchmen rode slowly, admiring the fine hedgerows and fertile fields where they soon intended to hunt, while Nelson stumped along behind. They were entirely unaware that he understood them, and probably would not have cared had they known.

“You will like Elisabeth, Jean-Paul, but remember—she will not award you her favors. I believe she is holding out for the emperor himself.”

“Perhaps he’ll let me search her.”

Nelson gritted his teeth and gripped his crutch more firmly, longing to dash out the man’s brain. The casual joke encompassed a tragedy which had struck him as severely as the fall of his country, and even now made his one good eye see through a crimson fog. Emma. His beautiful Emma. She had gone to Bonaparte in the guise of a lover and the role of an assassin, and had met her fate at the guillotine which had replaced the gallows at Tyburn field. While she died in futile bravery, he skulked anonymously about the country, senselessly preserving his life. Emma had died in a vain glorious gesture for her country—and now she was reduced to a sniggering policy of caution.

“Elisabeth may set her sights high,” the Frenchman continued. “She is quite the original. Your average Englishwoman, of course, will sleep with anyone for a dram of gin, and not be worth the price.”

Once more, Nelson’s fingers tightened about his crutch. What beneficent God would reduce him so, and now force him to smile as the women of his country were denigrated? Nappy chanted again, “Do your duty, do your duty.”

“The sisters, tell me again of the sisters.”

“Ah. Les belles filles Bennetts. Jane is the most beautiful, but she is faithful to her boring husband Bingley. Mary is a bluestocking; any man who tries to seduce her will die of boredom. Lydia, though—ah Lydia.” It was clear from his lascivious tones exactly how friendly Lydia might be.

“She is a widow, and you know how they are. Kitty, now, she is malleable and will do what she sees others are doing.”

“I see,” said Jean-Paul. “But in this fine household of Madame Darcy, I have one question …”

At the name Darcy, Nelson’s heart began to beat faster, and not merely from the exertion.

“Where might be Monsieur Darcy?”

“You must ask Elisabeth, she says it so amusingly. How foolish he acted, she will say. Did he not know how interesting and entertaining we soldiers of the Empire would be? It certainly served her husband right, to refuse us hospitality and to be shot instantly dead.”

One may toss a bucket overboard, a bucket of slop, of blood, of fine wine. It does not matter. It will strike the water, spread forth and in seconds dissolve entirely, no trace of it remaining in the grand, cruel ocean. So it was, then, with Nelson’s last hope.

Sometimes, in the grip of extreme hunger or fatigue, he felt his mind slip into a delirium the equal of those which had tormented him during his various tropical fevers. Now, hurrying after the horsemen, he felt the waking dreams come upon him once more. He was in charge again of the fleet, but this time the invasion force did not slip past him in the fog, as had previous French fleets at Alexandria and Toulon. This time he did not sate his fury upon empty vessels, nor send Hardy and the ships to Brighton to rescue whom they might while he and his marines hopelessly pursued the vast army on land …

This time he came instead upon the fleet a mile off Portsmouth, and set his own ships amongst it, pell mell, without regard to the line. Cannons exploded, ships burned and he gave no quarter, listening to the screams of drowning men and horses, while in reality he walked a sunlit path, smelling late autumn roses and hearing the song of the mockingbird.

In his mind he had fought not only this battle but others, his tactical sense and his rage so heightened that, did he only think he might go to some harbor without being recognized and captured, might find some vessel to smuggle him away to the colonies, might meet up with his men again and command a fleet—then he should be the invincible arm of terror and destruction. Then no Continental ship should ever leave its port, no ship at all touch shore upon his besieged island home …

And to what avail, even in his dreams? He who was thought dead and was as good as such; no hero in hiding, to save his nation. Only a crippled and sun-touched old sailor, masquerading as a buffoon for so long that it no longer seemed a masque.

This time he came instead upon the fleet a mile off Portsmouth, and set his own ships amongst it, pell mell, without regard to the line. Cannons exploded, ships burned and he gave no quarter, listening to the screams of drowning men and horses, while in reality he walked a sunlit path, smelling late autumn roses and hearing the song of the mockingbird.

In his mind he had fought not only this battle but others, his tactical sense and his rage so heightened that, did he only think he might go to some harbor without being recognized and captured, might find some vessel to smuggle him away to the colonies, might meet up with his men again and command a fleet—then he should be the invincible arm of terror and destruction. Then no Continental ship should ever leave its port, no ship at all touch shore upon his besieged island home …

And to what avail, even in his dreams? He who was thought dead and was as good as such; no hero in hiding, to save his nation. Only a crippled and sun-touched old sailor, masquerading as a buffoon for so long that it no longer seemed a masque.

Nelson submitted to the bath and allowed himself to be dressed in coat and breeches which must have belonged to the late and apparently unlamented Mr. Darcy, but he refused to be shaved. Examining his now trimmed coif and beard in a small mirror, even he could barely recognize his famous features, sunburned and lined with illness and fatigue. Still he took pains to rearrange his hair so that it stood at odd angles, and to put the neckerchief in disarray.

Dinner was a bizarre yet festive occasion, so great a feast that one would not suspect the nation to be under the yoke of a dictator, the people starving from the thievery of the conquerors and from the half-successful blockade of the remnants of their own Navy.

Madame Darcy had placed the French colonel at the head of the table and flirted with him shamelessly and relentlessly, though with an undercurrent of coldness that signified a resolution to maintain her virtue. Her sister Jane and husband Bingley were bluff English gentry, polite, hearty, and entirely ignorant of the fact that they were engaged in giving comfort to the enemy. Lydia Wickham, evidently the widow of an Army captain who had died in service, was even more the strumpet than the Frenchman had implied, and her sister, Kitty Bennett, seemed to possess that lack of discrimination which was common to the animal for which she had been named.

The final sister, Mary Bennett, was actually engaged in reading at table. Beside her sat an ancient wearing an ornate, outmoded long wig and a dressing gown, who babbled on to himself about something called chymical economy. Occasionally Mary would look up from her book and address a question to this Lord Henry, and then their conversation would become so abstruse as to seem to be conducted in a foreign tongue. Madame Darcy’s father, Mr. Bennett, finished the party, an oblivious gentleman who did not seem perturbed by his daughters’ scandalous behavior.

No one at this table of ignorance, licentiousness, and madness spoke a word to Nelson. He thought back to his meals with his sailors, and tried to behave in the uncouth nature of the untutored, eating with his fingers or a knife, downing his watered wine in a single gulp. And indeed, after a year of living upon the rude charity of the road, he did not have to entirely feign the manners of a starveling.

He ate in fear of committing some error which might call attention to the reality of himself. His identity itself must be safe, for he was presumed dead. His boatswain, after entrusting the care of his parrot to the wounded admiral—or perhaps it had been the opposite—had taken Nelson’s blood-stained coat and attempted to sell its wealth of medals. Eager French officials had known it immediately to be a relic of the missing Nelson; the boatswain had then bragged of stripping the coat from a corpse hastily tossed into some mire, and held to this brave contention even to his death.

But while no one would suspect this pitiful beggar of being the late commander in chief, surely they could recognize him as a fugitive gentleman. Investigation would then identify him—and he would be disposed of swiftly by firing squad, or slowly and visibly with farcical trial. Or most likely, and most detestable, he would be pardoned in a humiliating show of magnanimity to the fallen nation, to be kept as a crippled caricature of his former dignity. Kept as a house pet, fed and groomed and brought out at state dinners to shout “Hooray for Boneyparte.”

“Has your cat lost as many lives as you?”

Nelson started back to the moment. Miss Mary Bennett was speaking to him. “Whatever d’ye mean, milady?”

“It is said that a cat has nine lives. You have obviously had a number of misadventures, losing your leg and your arm. Your right eye would also seem to be weak…”

He cursed it silently. It did not appear scarred or shrunken as did so many sightless eyes, but the damned thing had lately taken to wandering.

“…and that scar you attempt to hide with your hair is most impressive. In fact, the mere fact that your hair is entirely gray and your age not so very advanced—fifty, I should judge—bespeaks a life of action…”

“Sister,” yawned Elisabeth Darcy, cutting short the disquisition. “You are wont to experiment thoroughly with boring subjects, and as such have quite lost the ability to be entertaining. Philippe here has been telling us that the emperor will soon come to residence in the city, and you would rather hear the sanguine life story of an accident-prone drunkard.”

And so the table was instead regaled with news of the imminent resumption of the social scene. Madame Darcy ended dinner with the announcement that she would, indeed, winter in London, and enjoy the opportunities of which the metropolis provided. Next the gentlemen called for brandy and the women briefly retired, and Nelson was escorted to a windowless room with a cot, where his pets awaited. He was instructed to remain there, no matter what he might hear.

He woke after midnight to the sound of an opening door, and groped for the feeble defense of his crutch. Farmer George, foolish beast, began to purr as he always did upon half-wakening, and Nappy, now off his best behaviour, squawked, “Do your duty, men. Do your duty.”

A figure stood in the doorway—Madame Darcy, with her hair down now, and clad in a simple muslin gown which gleamed ghastly in the light of a candle.

Marvels abound, thought Nelson. Did her interest in oddities thus include their amatory prowess? He had been celibate for a long time, at first with a sailor’s tired stoicism. Then his mistress had been executed and his wife Fanny, determined not to be outshone even in death by her rival, had succumbed in some equally foolish show of resistance. In this act of sublime stupid bravery she had been joined by his stepson Josiah, who had saved his life at Tenerife…And with the deaths of those women he had loved had died also any carnal longings.

Nor did he think his ill and battered body, whose suffering was equal to that of his spirit, willing to acquiesce to any erotic adventure. But Madame Darcy was lovely and spirited, if devious and cruel. And if such a woman was of a mind to seduce this wretched bit of humanity, he doubted not that she would possess the means to bring him to the mark.

She slipped into the room, closing the door, and waved the candle at his eyes. “As I thought,” she said. “The right does react less swiftly. You are blind in that eye, are you not?”

“Ey, mum, this ain’t done now…” he whined.

He woke after midnight to the sound of an opening door, and groped for the feeble defense of his crutch. Farmer George, foolish beast, began to purr as he always did upon half-wakening, and Nappy, now off his best behaviour, squawked, “Do your duty, men. Do your duty.”

A figure stood in the doorway—Madame Darcy, with her hair down now, and clad in a simple muslin gown which gleamed ghastly in the light of a candle.

Marvels abound, thought Nelson. Did her interest in oddities thus include their amatory prowess? He had been celibate for a long time, at first with a sailor’s tired stoicism. Then his mistress had been executed and his wife Fanny, determined not to be outshone even in death by her rival, had succumbed in some equally foolish show of resistance. In this act of sublime stupid bravery she had been joined by his stepson Josiah, who had saved his life at Tenerife…And with the deaths of those women he had loved had died also any carnal longings.

Nor did he think his ill and battered body, whose suffering was equal to that of his spirit, willing to acquiesce to any erotic adventure. But Madame Darcy was lovely and spirited, if devious and cruel. And if such a woman was of a mind to seduce this wretched bit of humanity, he doubted not that she would possess the means to bring him to the mark.

She slipped into the room, closing the door, and waved the candle at his eyes. “As I thought,” she said. “The right does react less swiftly. You are blind in that eye, are you not?”

“Ey, mum, this ain’t done now…” he whined.

She laughed. “They think themselves exhausted by Lydia and Kitty, but in truth it is Mary’s botanicals.”

The studious sister, leading out the ancient eccentric, said, “A simple dissolution of laudanum and extraction of…”

“Later, sister,” sighed Elisabeth Darcy. They passed men practicing with rifles. When one is constantly entertaining hunters, the lady explained, it was only natural that some weapons and charge might disappear, and be put to better use.

They came to the huge shed. The canvas had been drawn up. A strange vessel rested there, a framework of light wood above an open boat. Four similar craft sat behind it.

“What then, do you need my knowledge to invade the moon?”

“No,” replied Madame Darcy, “to invade London.”

She turned and curtsied. “Lord Nelson, your fleet awaits.”

In reality, his fleet was nowhere near ready. The moonboats were not, as Nelson had feared, mere balloons harnessed together. Rather than hot air, they relied upon a heretofore unknown substance which Lord Henry Cavendish referred to as dephlogisticated air, which he formed of water and electricity.

“Lord Henry, you must know,” Miss Mary Bennett took pains to inform Nelson, “is the man who weighed the earth.”

“A boon to humanity I am sure,” he replied. But he was pleasantly surprised the first time he took his flagship up. It veritably sprang into the air, angered at restraint, and reaccepted the ground only grudgingly as the odd gas was returned into storage vats.

“Did I mention,” asked Lord Henry casually as he flew with Nelson one night above the trees, “that dephlogisticated air is remarkably inflammable and will explode upon any contact with fire or lightning?”

“Musket fire as well?”

“A direct hit to a gasbag would prove fatal,” the desiccated old man replied. “I trust that I have placed the bags high enough, and sealed them adequately, to prevent the sparks of our own flints from igniting them. But one must lack certainty without the opportunity of direct observation.”

Ah well. Nelson had seen first rates explode when fire reached their magazines, had risked it himself. No one who had ever witnessed such a conflagration—the awful roar, the instant extinction of hundreds of men—no one could forget such a sight. Yet one still sailed into battle.

There was much to do. Before teaching the crews, Nelson had first to devise methods of flying. It was a bit like sailing, in that one was at the mercy of wind and weather, but it differed in the addition of the vertical.

Long sails might be extended laterally from a ship, to aid in steering. These might even be manned as oars, if the ship were to become becalmed.

The crew, when aloft, wore ropes about their waists in case of turbulence. Nelson had a set of leather belts with which he strapped himself to a forward strut, whence he might survey both the ship and the path ahead. From this odd perch, jutting out somewhat like a figurehead, he could see sepulchral wisps of cloud, and the dark fields below, divided by fence and hedge and sparkling ribbons of water. At times it seemed almost inviting, calling to him to step away, to fly freely… And then he was glad of his bonds, like Odysseus tied to his mast, listening to the song of the siren maidens.

There were signals to devise, and marksmen to train. His sergeants in this were a pair of poachers known as the Wheat brothers, Dick and Rees, unruly men who could hide in a tree and shoot a rabbit through the eye. This seemed a valuable talent, and soon Nelson was sending all his new marines into treetops, both to impart to them the skill of shooting accurately downward, and to steel them to heights. His men were armed with rifles, which gave them some small advantage—they might accurately shoot three times the distance of a French musket. But those French muskets, of course, outnumbered them by the thousands.

There was no lack of volunteers. Madame Darcy’s collection of oddities, it seemed, contained several former soldiers and a surveyor, all pretending to be farmhands. Nelson’s own lamentable cover identity was Mad Tom the human scarecrow: on pleasant days he stood in the housegarden and waved his crutch at birds. It was a humiliating performance that he found himself entering with no qualms, to the extent that he sometimes abased himself further, to earn a coin from an amused French visitor.

He began each night as a beggar, rag-clad, red-eyed. Yet as he entered the shed and passed amongst the shadows of the moonboats he became a different man, standing straighter, pain ignored, voice deep and resolute. Those who laughted at him by day took his orders by night, and wondered to themselves who their new admiral might be.

And so he would find himself in the helm of a moonboat, snapping commands to the boys as they ran aloft in the riggings—for other than the few old soldiers designated for boarding, and the indispensable Wheat brothers, it seemed best to have lightweight crewmen. This allowed the boat to go higher, and gave them the luxury of lining the underside of the balloon casings with a padding of burlap—sufficient, it was to be hoped, to prevent musket fire from piercing the bags and igniting the dephlogisticated air.

One cloudy night he determined to take his men up all together, to practice some vague concept of formation flying. The surveyor was complaining bitterly—he had just finished painting figureheads upon the boat, carved wood seeming an excessive weight, and the paint was not yet dry on Nelson’s flagship, the Electra. The name amused him, as he remembered his triumphs in the Agamemnon.

He had thought himself immune to surprise, but as he donned an extra coat—for it was cold aloft, and cloaks tended to become entangled in the rigging—he saw the five Bennett sisters approach him, scandalously attired in breeches and jackets.

“Ladies!” he said. “We do not embark upon a pleasure voyage.”

He did not share the superstition that women were bad luck aboard a ship, and in any event, they had yet to invent new superstitions suitable to the airships.

“This is not a cruise,” agreed Elisabeth Darcy. “We have always intended to captain these ships ourselves. We are smaller even than your village lads, we are familiar with London and its troop dispositions due to our recent journey of reconnaissance. And if we are ignorant of seamanship—why, so are the men of this county, and all humanity is equally ignorant of airmanship. To further my qualifications I am also, as you are no doubt aware, the general as it were of the Free Patriot Army of this part of England.”

He actually had not been aware, but it did explain some of the surreptitious visitors and odd meetings he had noticed. It also explained his old shipmate’s message to him. “But…”

“And besides…” said Lydia, a dueling pistol appearing suddenly in her hand. She aimed at a rat which was skulking in shadow toward the stables. There was a brief thunderclap, the smell of powder, and the rodent fell twitching. Lydia smiled, her small teeth gleaming ferally in the moonlight… “And besides, our solicitous French friends have turned us all into crack shots. And we are, I do not blush to say, utterly ruthless.”

He had some question regarding that—he had seen Jane cry over a wounded sparrow, and thought Mary might be quite distracted from combat by the sight of an interesting toadstool, but he did admit that Elisabeth and Lydia had the makings of diligent and stern warriors, and that Kitty might be relied on to do whatever the others did, only more vigorously.

“Very well,” he said. “But be warned that, as admiral of this fleet, I shall not temper my language or orders out of regard for your sex.”

“Be certain you do not,” snapped Elisabeth, and she and her sisters each betook themselves to the helm of a moonboat.

Mr. Bennett tended to be somewhat overwhelmed by the activities of his daughters, though he was often heard to say, “If Lizzy believes it correct, I shall abide by her decision.” He spent most of his days in the nursery, supervising the education of the various tiny Bingleys, Darcys and Wickhams who were trotted out intermittently after meals or on sunny afternoons, and were otherwise kept in seclusion.

One day Bennett came to Nelson’s small room. One of Nelson’s periodic fevers had recurred, and he lay drenched in sweat, sipping bitter quinine and hoping that he would recover in time for their proposed action upon Boxing Day, or weather not permitting, upon the New Year’s day. It seemed wise to attack when the better part of their foes, complacent with garrison duty, would be obtunded from holiday celebrations.

As always when his master had a fever, Farmer George hovered closely, delighting in the heat and adding his own feline warmth to Nelson’s discomfort.

“Brought you something, Mad Tom,” said Bennett, with a slight cough of disparagement. He, as all the men, held clueless suspicions regarding Nelson’s identity.

“Thought you might like it,” he continued, and held up an antique scarlet uniform coat. “My great uncle’s. Can’t have you going into battle dressed as a beggar now, can we? Meaning no offense, of course,” as he recalled that the man was a beggar.

Nelson thanked him. It did suit his purpose. His crew were to wear no signs of identification, to aid in their escape should such be necessary. He, however, lacking various limbs as he did, had no chance of escape, and would prefer to die in the uniform of his nation. Even a uniform some fifty years outdated.

They held their final conference on Christmas morning. The Yule log roared in the fire, and Cavendish rattled on a bit about the hazards of the explosive grenades he had concocted, the need to watch the temperature of the air in relation to the balloon’s ascension, and various other facts with which Nelson was already depressingly familiar.

“And now,” said the aged scholar, “I believe I have finished my role in this comedy of patriotism. I have noticed certain properties in stationary bodies of water which make me believe it will be possible to weigh the moon, and I have delayed my investigations into this matter long enough.” He left the room, and only Elisabeth’s peremptory command kept her sister Mary from hurrying off to discuss this interesting mathematical question with the old gentleman.

“Very well,” said Elisabeth. They went over the plans again. The Free Patriot Army—a motley selection of allied individual groups which tended to the occasional act of terror or thievery—was to be alerted but only when the fleet was already above London, to keep any from suspecting trouble and rousing the troops. Their own men were to begin the day’s action, however, by silently capturing the semaphore stations which allowed messages to be transmitted across country at a shocking speed. They would send their own message, but only when the moonboats had begun their action.

Mr. Bennett entered the room as they were ending their conference. “I had thought we ought to ask the vicar to dine tonight, and hold services for the holy day,” he said.

“It will not be convenient, Father. We have planned otherwise,” replied Elisabeth. “Tonight we leave to invade and conquer London.”

“If you think it advisable, Lizzy,” her father returned.

Then they went to prepare for the night’s action. Nelson allowed himself to be shaved, and his hair to be tied back with a riband. His cat, meanwhile, bathed in equal self-satisfaction, and the parrot groomed its feathers.

“We are,” he remarked, “the Spartan army, bathing and oiling that they might look well as they die.” It felt good to be back in uniform, even this foolish antiquated one, and to speak again in his own voice.

The troops seemed taken aback by Mad Tom’s transformation. He leaned against the railing of the Electra, uniformed, his gaze hard and steady, as the crews gathered in the twilight by the moonboats. The craft had taken on a full load of dephlogisticated air, and they strained against their bonds like cavalry horses eager for battle. He called for their attention.

“England expects every man—and woman—to do his—or her—duty.”

Elisabeth Bennett stepped forward. “My friends”—only a woman would exhort warriors so—”Tonight, with the Almighty’s help, we will liberate our captive nation, and free ourselves from the onerous and odious foreigners. And lest you doubt that God has already given us every sign of his favour, let me remind you that in our hour of need he sent us this man to lead us into battle. Sent us Horatio Nelson, hero of the Nile, Commander in Chief of the British Navy.”

Her troops exchanged astonished glances, then began to cheer. It was only with a loud shout and his much enhanced reputation that Nelson was able to restore order.

Then suddenly the damned parrot had flown onto his shoulder and was shouting, “Do your duty, do your duty.”

He was never sure what fool had set them loose, but the cat was there as well, scrabbling up into the rigging, and the parrot had flown amongst the gasbags. It would take too long to catch them; they would simply have to come along. And when he stopped to consider it, they were in fact the only veterans of naval combat at his command.

“Set sail,” he ordered. High above, Nappy called, “Hooray for Boneyparte! Do your duty!”

The most astonishing thing about air travel was its utter silence. Floating now above the clouds, guided only by compass and the surveyor’s dead reckoning, linked by dark lanterns flashing code, they were alone in a world of black sky and white clouds. There were, to be sure, various creaks and aching sounds from the rigging, the soft ripples of the billowing sail, and the occasional odd beat of the mechanical wings as they corrected course, but in all the impression was of silence. They traveled within the clouds themselves, cleaving through the ghastly, fluffy field of white. The cold haze of the clouds was nothing like the salt spray of the ocean. But Nelson felt strangely at home.

The ships seemed to fly as if possessed, and the crews as well. Nelson found himself under constant scrutiny, village lads looking at him with what could only be termed worship. When the Meryton came alongside, he even surprised Mr. Bingley, (acting as second in command to his wife) with a similar expression. The jaded, familiar voices of the Bennett women, immune to hero worship, were a relief.

“You should not have told them, Captain Darcy,” he said to Elisabeth. She was perched high in the prow beside him, telescope at the ready. “They now feel themselves invincible.”

She merely smiled.

Travel without regard to roads and waterways was remarkably quick. They were over London within hours; odd how one disregarded the stench of the place when one approached slowly by land or sea, but how it struck one almost physically as one floated down gently from above.

Until now, if seen at all, they must have been considered part of the clouds. As they began to draw lower they would be apparent to those below. Nelson suspected, however, that most who noticed them at this hour would be drunk, and the rest (he hoped) disbelieving or awestruck.

Their good luck was, indeed, unbelievable unless (as Mistress Darcy would have it, and Nelson might once have been inclined to accept) God was for them. They hovered far above the Tower of London.

“If Bonaparte is not there, we are done for,” said Nelson.

Elisabeth, peering below with her telescope, made an impatient sound. “Remember the cowardice of the man. He could not sleep in a captive nation but inside a fortress. Besides, I have had intelligence from within.”

One could hardly argue with that. Nelson nodded. Perhaps he should give some new, bold signal to his fleet—but he had not the heart.

Instead, he signaled for commencement of their plan. The Electra and Boadicea were to land, whilst aboard the Boyle, Mary Bennett would discover whether the grenades were truly effective by dropping them upon the guardhouses. Nelson hoped that there were not many Englishmen amongst the French, then shook his head quickly. If so, they were collaborators, and deserved what fate might overtake them.

The Beryton and the Canada contained the bulk of their sharpshooters, and were to stay above, offering covering fire.

Nelson sighed, slipping free of his restraints and wrapping his arm about the post. He was about to land in the enemy stronghold, he was beplumed and dressed in an absurd outfit of bright red, he could not run—one might think him nothing but a target to draw fire. Yet had not he always stayed upon the quarterdeck during melees, dressed in his every medal, seeming to dare the sharpshooters to take him? Best to do battle in the same manner he always had before.

They were halfway down—landing was always a bit unsettling, the ground rushing up beneath you, your stomach lagging a good ten paces behind, and the hope that the illiterate blacksmith’s apprentice piloting the ship had judged the descent properly, lest all come to resemble a pudding dropped from a bell tower—when a guardsman looked up and began to scream.

Nelson heard a sharp retort, and saw the guard fall. “Never has so much been owed to a handful of poachers,” he thought. Around him, rifles began to fire. His men had the advantage. He saw the Wheat brothers calmly take aim and fire, lads behind them reloading, while the terrified French soldiers could not even reach the ships with their musket fire, which then tended to return to them … But then they had fallen within musket range.

“Do your duty!” screamed his bird.

“Get above, you idiot,” Nelson cursed, and immediately swore again, as he felt sharp claws dig into his shoulder. The terrorized Farmer George was moving on to his accustomed refuge.

The surprise unbalanced him entirely and he pitched backward, but not before hearing a musket ball pass far too close. It singed his scalp and tore the unfortunate cat off his shoulder and into eternity. Another had died for his sake—and if the cat had not surprised him, it would instead be he who had been sent to greet his forebears.

Elisabeth skidded down beside him. “Admiral? Are you …”

“Damnation! Help me up,” he said. He was bleeding, but this time it mercifully poured over his blind eye, leaving his vision unencumbered. “Then see to that lad.”

That lad was beyond help—a belly wound. But deferring his own medical help in favor of the sailors had always won Nelson their hearts, and this time was no different.

There was an explosion, and great gouts of flame leapt up beyond the wall. Evidently Cavendish’s inventions had succeeded again.

The Electra thumped to her rest upon the ground, Nelson barely retaining footing. The crew was half off already, screaming and drawing weapons for close fighting—a few swords and cutlasses, more pitchforks and scythes. “For England! for Nelson! For George!” they shouted and their admiral, a bit concussed by the bullet, wondered if that final cheer were for his cat.

Then he was out of the moonboat, hobbling furiously for cover. Soldiers were approaching from the opposite side of the ship. Elisabeth turned, smiling with narrowed lips and eyes, and shot directly into the central airbag. The dephlogisticated air exploded, destroying the Electra and taking out the majority of the pursuers. Still though, she had been a noble ship and he regretted her loss.

They could hear shouts and firing inside the Tower. As Elisabeth had expected—she was so much the optimist—the English servants had fallen upon their foreign masters.

They met up with the crew of the Boadicea. Nelson watched as Lydia, a knife in her teeth and her blouse open to the waist in a remarkable display, put a bullet through a guardsman’s chest and a second bullet through another’s throat, then paused calmly amidst the carnage to reload her pistols.

They entered the Tower. He found himself lagging far behind, stumbling now and then over the body of a foe or friend. Once he rounded a corner only to find himself staring directly into the muzzle of a French officer’s pistol. Only then the man’s mistress smashed a chamberpot down upon his head.

“Thank you, madame,” said Nelson. Leaning against the wall, he was able to doff his absurd feathered hat. Of course, the parrot upon his shoulder made the gesture a bit less courtly.

“My pleasure, sir,” she replied, taking up the loaded gun and departing, in search of new game he presumed.

Then he was in a large ornate bedchamber with his men (and women) holding guns outstretched on one side, and on the other Napoleon Bonaparte himself, clad in an astonishing saffron nightgown and surrounded by loyal guards.

“You cannot escape,” said Elisabeth. Outside a building exploded. Damn! Had they not expressly asked Mary to spare the magazine, of which they might have future need?

“What will it be?” Elisabeth continued. “Die now, and let your men fight on to keep the country? Little good that will do you!”

The emperor’s pudgy face contorted as he thought. What to choose, safety and surrender, or glorious death? It was certain that, while he would ordinarily not hesitate to opt for the former, he was having unexpected difficulty with the choice. The man was not entirely without honor.

“I cannot surrender—not to rabble, not to women,” he cried.

“Then surrender to me,” said Nelson, limping forward. He bent down and shook off his hat, then looked directly at Bonaparte. Would his famous profile, his well-known haunted eyes, reveal his identity despite the comic but blood-soaked costume and the parrot?

Napoleon’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped in the moment of recognition. Then he smirked. “If I have been defeated, it has been at the hands of a dead hero.”

“My death, perhaps, was reported prematurely, sir,” replied Nelson. “May I have your sword?”

Bonaparte gestured to his men to put down their guns, then proffered his sword, hilt outward.

Nelson smiled, and waved his hand dismissively. “I fear I cannot oblige you without help. Captain Darcy?”

And to the emperor’s eternal scandal, the woman went forward to accept the token of surrender.

At that moment Nappy began to squawk. “Hooray for Boneyparte,” he said. “Hooray!”

The admiral of the airfleet and savior of England sighed. He was obviously going to have to work on his pet’s repertoire.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of the gratitude of her nation must be in want of a husband.

Nelson, newly bandaged, having set guards about the castle and having supervised the incarceration of the prisoners and the sending of messages regarding the victory, as well as briefly paying his respects to his oblivious mad monarch, had been pleased to discover his own medals in the possession of the emperor. Their familiar weight gave solidity to the scarlet coat. All this exertion, far from tiring him, had exhilarated him. He found, also, that for the first time in a year his missing left leg no longer ached.

He located the Bennett sisters in a drawing room, finely painted though its decorations and the bulk of its furnishings had been removed as booty long ago. They sat demurely, pistols beside them, as the staff served tea. Jane was silent; Mr. Bingley had been amongst the casualties. However Kitty, one arm in a sling, was remarkably ebullient.

“It is settled then, Elisabeth,” she was saying. “You shall accept no less than the Prince of Wales.”

He sat, and allowed the captain of his late flagship to pour him a cup of tea. Nelson admitted that it did seem a good match. One felt that this year of fugitive adversity must have matured George, honing him from a dissipated selfish fop into a stern, dedicated patriot. Or so one, at least, hoped.

“And for Jane?” That sister wiped away a tear. It was clear she would maintain deep mourning for at least a year. “Another royal duke?”

“I think not,” said Elisabeth thoughtfully. “We shall need the royal dukes single, to induce treaties. So many sovereigns have marriageable daughters.”

“Allow me to recommend my executive officer and dear friend Captain Hardy,” said Nelson, entering into the spirit of the thing. “A capable man, and I’m sure he has been promoted to admiral in my absence.”

Jane allowed that she might take it under advisement.

“Well, I want a duke,” said Kitty, and began to pout. “Foreign would do, just not from too far east.”

“And you, Mary?”

The studious sister glanced up from a book of philosophy she had discovered in Napoleon’s bedchamber. “I suppose I shall have to marry Lord Henry. I do, after all, bear his child.”

This comment had the insalubrious effect of ending all conversation for the space of several minutes.

Then Nelson wished the ladies happy, and rose. He imagined he had more to do that evening, to ensure their safety until the Navy returned and the Army was reconstituted.

“Does no one intend to ask my future?” asked Lydia suddenly.

Nelson paused. “I had presumed, Captain Wickham, that you would wish to remain with your ship, and make a career, as it were, of flight.” The new Air Navy would need experienced officers.

“Not enough,” she said, and rose to walk over to where he stood leaning upon his crutch. She took his lapels in her hands, and came very close. “Not enough to be a captain. I wish an admiral.”

Nelson felt a sudden odd weakness before her predatory gaze, and realized something else. For so long his life had been circumscribed by pain and want. And now, in his time of triumph, pain had retreated—and he felt the first stirring of that other long dormant phantom, of pleasure.

“It may yet be arranged,” he replied.

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